Prior art sensors commonly detect the presence or absence of an object, but do not detect other characteristics (such as color) not directly detectable by measuring the physical dimensions of the detected articles. This invention provides in general an apparatus for detecting both the presence of objects and predetermined characteristics thereof. Specifically disclosed is an embodiment useful with games played with one or more balls by one or more players.
Conventionally, event detection constituting scorekeeping for games (competitive or individual play) has been performed manually by an observer or mentally by one or more of the participants. Scorekeeping may also be done manually by a participant, but that destroys the game's continuity and enjoyment. Also, additional drawbacks are that manual scorekeeping by a nonparticipant requires an extra person, and mentally kept scores are frequently inaccurate and subject to argument during the game.
This invention, in one aspect, may be embodied as an automatic scorekeeping device, both for games of solitaire and for two-party games played by two or more persons with one or more balls. Two-party games present a particularly difficult problem, for even after a scoring event (e.g., presence of a ball, etc.) is detected, it must further be determined which player has scored. Since in most games the physical effects of scoring are outwardly identical (e.g., ball falling through hoop, ball over goal, etc.), determining automatically which party has scored is impossible with the use of prior art event detectors which only detect the presence or absence of an object.
This invention recognizes the limitations of the prior art and provides a solution to its shortcomings by disclosing an electronic scorekeeping device (event detector or object sensor) which not only automatically determines when a particular physical phenomenon such as a scoring event has occurred, but also determines which player has scored by distinguishing unique characteristics associated with respective player's game implements. In one embodiment, this is accomplished by assigning a different color to each player's game implement (ball) and, when a scoring event is sensed, determining which color implement (and hence which player) effected the score. Thus, for example, if player (or team) A's red basketball is thrown through a hoop, player A's score is automatically incremented, but not the score of player (team) B, who uses a different colored ball (such as yellow).
In operation, these features may be accomplished in one form as follows. Whenever a predetermined event (such as a score) is sensed, a light output (such as an LED or light emitting diode) illuminates the scoring area (e.g. goal area) and a photosensitive element (such as a phototransistor) measures the amount of light reflected from the game implement (e.g., ball). The reflectivity of the implement (ball) is used to identify it. For example, if a relatively large amount of light is reflected, the ball is determined to be the lighter of the two, while a relatively small amount of reflected light indicates the darker of the two balls. In this manner, players using different colored balls with corresponding different reflectivities are distinguished. Another feature of this invention is that it quickly performs a plurality of samples of the ball's reflectivity when a scoring event occurs, thereby reducing the probability of an erroneous reflectivity reading.
The following detailed description describes an event detector or object sensor in accordance with the present invention which is particularly suited for scorekeeping games, especially basketball games. It should be well understood that the features of this invention equally pertain to other games (such as football, soccer or tennis variations), and even to other environments such as detecting and comprehending the passage of assembly line items.